


Free Fall

by MachaSWicket



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, One-Shot, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Speculation, damn their stupid beaming faces, fic based on promo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:11:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2201541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SUMMARY:  <i>He expected that one day he would blurt something out mid-fight, or be unable to control his reactions to seeing her hurt or in danger. But, as it turns out, it’s nothing quite so dramatic.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Free Fall

**Author's Note:**

> THANKS: To katelinnea and dansunedisco for agreeing to take a look at this. Writing in new fandoms is always terrifying! :)
> 
> DISCLAIMER: These characters belong to the DC universe and WB. I guess. I'm really bad with comic origins/ownership, you guys. The bottom line is -- they ain't mine.

The bar of the salmon ladder shudders with each successive step up, the reverberation beneath his palms familiar and soothing. Oliver is used to blocking out stress with physical exertion. He’s used to losing himself in the physicality, in that sweet burn of his muscles protesting.

He reaches the top and hangs there for a moment, breathing heavily, and then drops to the floor. He throws in a quick set of squats, then calls it a workout.

It’s a relatively lazy Saturday at the new lair. Dig checked in briefly, and then headed back home to Lyla and the baby. Oliver went for a run, then spent an hour working out while Felicity worked. She’s running cables for her new server babies, an apparently painstaking and color-coded affair. 

Oliver’s holding a towel, shirtless and still sweaty, when he wanders over to Felicity and says, “Lunch?”

Her cables are apparently very absorbing -- she barely spares him a glance. 

“Ten more minutes,” she answers, and he knows from her tone that she’s granted him and his question maybe 5% of her attention. Three zip-ties are clenched between her teeth as she bundles the cables. Oliver has no idea what, exactly, the cables are doing, but she’s laid them out in neat, color-coordinated bunches. Bright primary red, yellow, and blue, plus vibrant orange and green -- a riot of color here in the industrial grey lair. 

Just like Felicity and her turquoise nails and her fuschia lipstick and her cobalt sweater.

Oliver swears he’s learned a hundred different names for the color blue just from her cardigan collection. Periwinkle. Royal. Navy. Indigo. 

He realizes he’s grinning stupidly at her, but she’s paying him no attention, just bundling cables and zip-tying them in place. So he says, “I’ll grab a shower. Thai?”

“Sure,” she mutters around the last zip-tie, and he can see the stain of her bright lipstick on the plastic. “That place on Walnut?”

“Perfect,” he says, and retreats to wash up, still grinning. 

& & &

It never occurred to Oliver that it would be something so simple, considering the complexity of the life he lived. 

He knows his weaknesses and soft spots. He knows how impulsive he can be when he’s close to the edge. Oliver is used to living his life a certain way, and danger is a part and parcel of it. The adrenaline kick, the heightened senses, and particularly the jittery, not-so-great hold on his emotions right afterwards -- he’s long suspected one of those would be the catalyst between Felicity and him. He’s pretty sure Diggle has been half-expecting, half-dreading it, too. 

Because Oliver doesn’t need to be told how poorly he handles Felicity being in danger. He _really_ doesn’t need Dig to give him those knowing looks, looks that say, _you’re not fooling anyone, least of all her_. Hell, Oliver isn’t really even _trying_ at this point -- he’s already told her the truth, even if she didn’t let herself believe him. 

But having inconvenient feelings and _acting_ on them are two completely separate things, and for the most part, Oliver has the iron will to keep himself from doing something stupid. Because he needs things to be in his control, as much as possible. There’s just no way to successfully run a double life without keeping everything on lockdown -- particularly, destabilizing things like emotions.

Which is not to say that he’s some unfeeling automaton. No, the problem is that he feels things too deeply, and he’s had the people he loves used against him too many times to let himself fall back down that rabbit hole. Only it’s far too late for not-letting-himself-fall; he’s so deep in the warren he can’t see daylight anymore, but he’s been doing his level best to keep the last bit of separation between himself and Felicity. 

He expected that one day he would blurt something out mid-fight, or be unable to control his reactions to seeing her hurt or in danger. But, as it turns out, it’s nothing quite so dramatic.

Hell, it’s not even him losing the battle with his willpower to finally, _finally_ respond the way he wants to one of Felicity’s rambling, accidental acknowledgements of her attraction to him. God knows he’s swallowed a hundred blatant retorts the past two years.

No, instead it’s… _nothing_ , really. 

& & &

Their new favorite Thai place is a a quick five minute walk from their new location -- a hole in the wall that managed to survive the Undertaking and Slade’s army of minions. Felicity shrugs out of her sweater when they set out, because it’s sunny and warm for once. Oliver can hear actual birds chirping, which lends the entire walk a sense of unreality. 

The Glades have been dark and crumbling and brutal for as long as Oliver can remember, and the one-two punch of the last couple years have only made it worse. There haven’t been birds around in months and months, but Oliver spots three on their walk, though he keeps most of his attention on Felicity and her exuberant opinions on the processing power she’s bought them by virtualizing large portions of their system.

She digresses into a meditation on the finer points of her security protocols, and though Oliver has basically no idea what she’s talking about, he listens anyway. He loves watching her like this -- her enthusiasm, her brilliance, her passion shining through. She pauses only long enough for them to order, finishing up her point about 1,024-bit encryption while they wait for her name to be called.

Oliver accepts a large paper bag of their food, feels the staples holding it shut as he rolls the top down farther to create a better handle. He keeps one hand free, just in case. Some lessons are so ingrained that he doesn’t even notice them anymore.

As they emerge back onto the cracked sidewalk, Oliver grins over at her. “So,” he says dryly, “what I’m hearing is that you like the new server.”

Felicity laughs, a brief bubbly sound, and nods. “Servers,” she corrects easily, “and, yes, they’re sexy fast.”

Oliver chuckles. “Sexy fast?”

“Hey, you get all hot and bothered over fast cars, I get hot over fast servers.” She flushes a bit. “I mean, I don’t _actually_ get--”

“I know what you mean.” Oliver wonders again how someone as dark and broken as he is could end up with a person so luminescent in his life. Sometimes it’s almost too much to look directly at her. “I’m partial to fast bikes, actually,” he murmurs, his tone low and little more suggestive than he’d actually intended.

There aren’t many pedestrians in the Glades, but he’s aware of a couple approaching, coming the opposite way along the same sidewalk. Oliver scans them and their large German Shepherd quickly, assessing the threat level, shifting the food between him and Felicity and urging her to the right so he’ll be between her and the strangers.

As far as he can tell, they’re just out for a leisurely Saturday stroll with their dog. In the Glades. He’s black and she’s white; neither of them have any noticeable weapon bulges, and they haven’t so much as glanced at Oliver and Felicity. Instead, they’re holding hands and talking quietly, engrossed in each other. Oliver feels a twinge of something that might be envy.

Felicity notices them and her expression brightens. “Oh.” she catches the eye of the petite brunette. “Your dog is beautiful.”

“Thanks.”

The couple is ten feet away now, and they all slow as Felicity asks, “May I pet, uh, him? Her?”

The man gives a quick command and the dog sits. “This is Katja,” he tells Felicity with a proud tilt of his chin. “She’s friendly.”

Felicity’s voice softens, but Oliver knows better than to expect baby talk. She addresses Katja like a person, offering the back of her hand as an introduction. “Well, hello, Katja. You are quite the beauty.”

Katja nuzzles Felicity’s hand for a moment, then gives a little whine. 

It surprises Oliver not a single bit that the big, scary German Shepherd is almost immediately under Felicity’s spell. Katja’s mouth opens and her tongue lolls out as Felicity moves closer, dropping to one knee to scratch the dogs ears. “Yes, you are a good girl. And look at your collar.”

Oliver looks, even though Felicity wasn’t actually talking to him. Katja’s collar is a deep cranberry, with a smattering of rhinestones. But Oliver’s attention is caught by Felicity -- her turquoise fingernails against the deep amber brown of Katja’s coat, the simple happiness on her face as she glances up at him -- and… he’s lost the battle. He’s just done trying to keep her at arms’ length.

She’s so open and trusting and happy, and how is it possible that she’s been in his dark world for two years without losing an ounce of her brightness? He’s always known she’s the best of all of them, but he’s starting to think he’s still vastly underestimating her.

He’s starting to think that maybe he hasn’t corrupted her; that maybe he _can’t_.

And what he’s feeling isn’t just relief, it’s like the pieces falling into place. Like maybe they can have more than those lingering stares and occasional touches and the adrenaline rush of their shared mission. Maybe they can have some of this normal, everyday stuff, too.

“Oliver?”

He blinks, and Felicity’s standing beside him again, as always, watching him with that furrow of concern. But he finds himself smiling at her, can’t _stop_ himself from smiling at her, actually. “Yeah,” he answers belatedly, glancing over his shoulder to see the couple and their dog already twenty feet away.

When he turns back to Felicity, she’s studying him, trying to figure out where he went. “You okay?”

“Better than,” he answers. 

“Ooookay.” She shakes her head the slightest bit and turns to head back to the lair. And for whatever reason, this -- the walk, her incorruptible brightness, the way he can’t stop the happiness he feels when he looks at her, when he’s _with_ her -- this is what finally crushes the last of his protective walls to dust.

“Felicity.”

She turns back, eyebrows lifted just slightly in a question.

He doesn’t know what to say, how to explain himself to her. There’s no outside pressure, no emergency situation, no adrenaline rush to give him the recklessness to jump off of this particular cliff. Just him, trying to figure out how to say something important to her.

“Oliver?”

He could try to explain himself here on a sidewalk in the Glades in the middle of a Saturday, holding their lunch in a paper bag, or he could just-- “Would you like to go out to dinner with me?”

She grins at him, and it’s her amused, Oliver-is-being-an-idiot grin. “It’s lunchtime,” she stage-whispers. “You’re holding our lunch.”

“Felicity.”

Her smile shifts and fades, and he hates that she’s wary of him right now. He hates that what he said all those months ago makes her doubt him. “Dinner,” she repeats, trying to put the puzzle together.

“Yes,” he answers, letting himself just be himself, genuine, in this moment. Willing her to see everything he’s feeling.

Her eyes narrow, her head tilting as she studies him. “With you.”

“Yes.”

“You mean...” She pauses, lips pursing as she tries to figure out how to ask. 

He can practically hear her thinking, _like a date?_ , so he answers her, and it’s like free falling. “Yes, like a date.” His stomach lurches and he waits, watching her, more nervous than he can remember being in so, so long. At least about a woman. But this isn’t just a woman, it’s Felicity, which is why it’s so dangerous and exhilarating, and maybe why he _should_ have waited for an adrenaline rush to do this, because if he has to quietly stand here for one more second while the ground rushes up to meet him--

And then she starts to smile. “You’re asking me out,” she says, her tone uncertain, but her eyes bright and hopeful.

Oliver reaches out to take her hand. “Yes.” He nods once. “I am. And not just _like_ a date. An actual date. You and me.” That was dangerously close to rambling, and he forces himself to stop, to shut up, to let her _answer_.

His breath actually hitches in his chest when he sees her response. This smile -- it’s small and warm, and just about blinding in its effect on him. He feels light, giddy, can barely stop himself from bouncing on his toes. He’s pretty sure he’s beaming back at her before she even says, “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Her fingers squeeze his. “I’d like that.”

“Tonight?” he pushes. Because now that he’s done keeping himself from her, he wants everything. Right now. If not sooner. 

He can tell from the tilt of her head that this surprises her more than him asking in the first place. “Tonight?”

Oliver nods and takes a step closer. “I’m tired of waiting.” Felicity glances away from him, and he fumbles to fill the silence. “I know it’s my-- I mean, I’ve been the one waiting, so it’s my own fault, but I just--”

“You’re losing your touch, Oliver,” Felicity interrupts. She’s grinning now. Smirking. If he weren’t so taken by her, he’d be preparing himself for whatever she’s about to say. “Not a very smooth move, expecting a girl to drop everything just because you _finally_ get around to asking her out.” He can hear the teasing note in her voice. “I mean, really, asking someone out for the _same day_ \-- I’m sure _Cosmo_ told me I’m not allowed to say yes to that.”

“Felicity, we can--”

“Tonight,” she interrupts, and then she’s smiling that heart-stopping smile again. “Tonight is good.”

END

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Literally posting this and then leaving the country for a couple weeks, so if any of you are so kind as to comment, I promise I will reply, but it may be delayed. Thanks for reading!


End file.
